Luminary
by reenka
Summary: Draco's blinded by the sun, Harry's oblivious. It's a battle of wills: who will blink first? But in the end, some things retain their light, and everything seems to have a double edge, in the afterburn of silence and desire. ~~SLASH


disclaimer: the usual. don't speak, don't dream, don't own.  
warning: draco, harry, together. kind of. [slash, for the subtlety-impaired]  
dedication: to aja. because you bring them to the light even if i can't~:)  
  
``I thought I'd give my apprehensions all to you   
while I was freezing in that luminary burn   
I walked the empty corridors behind your words   
it seems like I just wasn't meant to follow through"   
~Space Team Electra  
  
  
  
  
~~luminary.  
  
Draco is staring straight into the sun, and Harry is sitting cross-legged  
behind him, eyes barely open, leaning against a tree. Without opening his eyes  
too much, it seems like Draco's hair is blazing, not like a halo, but like the  
sun itself. Harry doesn't have to lift his eyes to be blinded anymore. Draco  
stretches a hand behind him, and rests on it as he stares unseeingly upwards,  
not saying a word. Harry looks at that hand, those fingers, long and pale and  
immaculate, and the urge to touch becomes almost painful, but he doesn't. The  
hand seems enclosed, untouchable, not so much pure as distant. Far away, as if  
seen through a telescope, even though it is only inches from Harry's knees.  
Harry doesn't remember the last time either of them had said anything. They'd  
been sitting there, in silence, for hours it seems, and the sun has been  
turning more and more orange, bronzing and then melting into red as the day  
dies around them.  
  
Harry throws caution and thought to the winds, finally, his eyes tearing from  
looking at the ring of sunlight raging around the soft strands of pale gold  
hair. His heart feels painful and distinctly uncomfortable in his chest, and  
he feels as if he would explode if he sits still any longer. There isn't  
really any good reason for this, but there doesn't need to be. It has been too  
long. He feels as if he is losing something vital, something irretrievable, as  
the glow around Draco fades, as the sun sinks below the horizon. The silence  
between them has built to the point where it has become a ringing in his ears,  
a buzz racing heedlessly across the surface of his skin. It feels as if a  
scream is gathering in his throat, yet he is incapable of letting it free.  
  
Draco stiffens, and makes no sound, as Harry jolts him, closing his arms  
tightly about his waist, holding him from behind. The air seems to ripple  
around them, the tension reaching a crescendo. Draco bites his lip, tasting  
blood, but gives no sound, and makes no movement. Harry squeezes harder. Draco  
closes his eyes, feeling a strange fullness in his throat, and no sound could  
escape now even if he tried. It is an unpleasant and unfamiliar sort of  
sensation, but Draco can't find it in himself to break free from Harry's hold   
at this moment. In a flash, his eyes open, and he realizes he fully hates Harry  
Potter, right then. Hates him beyond words, beyond reasons, beyond everything.  
The feeling is omnipresent, saturating the air he breathes, sinking into his  
skin like ink. He hates him, and the object of his hatred is most likely  
oblivious, and he can't even tell him. He can't even tell him, right then, and  
he could've hated himself for that, but there is no room for that extra  
emotion in him.  
  
Harry's breath is harsh and hot against his neck. Draco shivers, suddenly  
cold. Staring into the sun isn't helping, and it's all seeming horribly pale,  
and fading bit by bit, as the noise in his own head increases. He wants to  
turn around and throw Harry to the ground, with a well-placed punch to the  
jaw, the sound of a satisfying crack to assuage his ringing ears. He could  
feel it, a physical need needling his skin, piercing his every sense.  
Something-- something horribly dense and heavy and unnameable, is keeping him  
still, is keeping everything locked inside him.   
  
Harry's fingers are now locked around his forearms, clenching around them  
tightly, his fingernails digging into delicate skin, on the verge of drawing  
blood.   
  
"Draco," he says, and his voice is perfectly level, but he may as well have  
growled or screamed or hissed, for all Draco notices, because Harry's voice is  
almost all he needs to push him completely over the edge.  
  
"No," Draco says, "No you can't, Potter." And he peels Harry's fingers from  
his arms, refraining from breaking them, though every nerve in his body  
screams at him to use force. If he let himself start, he would never stop. And  
he needs to stop. All of this needs to stop.  
  
Harry does hiss, and grab Draco's shoulder, and pull harshly, twisting him  
around so they could face each other. The sun is setting in his eyes, the rays  
of it seeming to focus and disperse in all directions, as if they were a clear  
green prism. Draco wishes he could just go blind and get it over with, because  
he doesn't think he wants to be the one to send more green light into those  
eyes, to be swallowed and cast out, changed, broken into pieces, nullified. He  
has a distinct vision of himself disintegrating in the fallout, the raining of  
green sparks setting him on fire, even as the light went out. He would not  
survive the casting, he knows, but he is starting to be beyond caring. The  
curse is a scream, ringing in his head, bell-like. His mouth moves, shaping  
the words, tasting the syllables, in complete silence. He doesn't know why,  
but thinking of it always comforts him, though it shouldn't. He should just  
say it, not clutch it to his chest like a baby. If only he could get it out,  
through all the phantom noise. So many things he could be saying, and he  
doesn't want to know what any of them are. If he said one, he'd have to say  
them all, wouldn't he? What if he can't pick just the two, he thinks. Draco  
doesn't want to find out.  
  
He can barely hear when Harry says "I don't love you," quite distinctly. Harry  
has that look in his eye, intense, almost maddened, like when they had fought,  
not so long ago, their wands speaking for them, the magic twisting and  
tangling between them. It had been tying itself in knots, buckling under its  
own burden, even as it lashed out with power, the spell-words sharp as  
razorblades, cutting their tendons, snipping at their strings, so that winners  
or losers, they still fell to their knees. That look, that meant either kisses  
or fists. Draco had always known that look. He'd been the one to perfect it.  
It isn't much, as far as suspense, anymore. Soon, soon, Harry would snap, and  
launch his body full-on at Draco, and his mouth would dive straight at his,  
unerring and not to be evaded, looking fit to kill, but always letting his  
moans betray him. Harry was always weak, when it came to this game. He'd never  
seen it through. He'd just wanted. Draco, on the other hand, realizes this is  
the last thing he wants. A curse is a curse. The fact remains, he hates Harry  
Potter with everything he has.  
  
"Don't you," Draco says, quietly, with just a hint of his usual sneer. Harry  
stares, brought up short for a moment, the fierce light flickering. So easy.  
His eyebrows furrow slightly, and he seems just the smallest bit  
uncomfortable. The sun has set, and Harry's eyes are opaque, almost completely  
dark now, all pupil with no light escaping. He looks away. "You want me,"  
Draco says, with finality.  
  
Harry looks up, quickly, something flickering in his gaze once again. "What  
does -that- have to do with anything?" he says, voice rising.  
  
"Everything. It's everything." I can't stand this, Draco thinks. I can't stand  
you. I can't bear looking at you. I can't even bear mocking you anymore. I  
can't believe I'm this near you and I'm not spitting and hissing like my  
clothes were on fire. Your want is pure poison. Did you know that, Potter? Do  
you have any idea, how I loathe you? Touching you is torture. I'd rather stick  
my hand into a boiling cauldron. He thinks all this, but says nothing. It's  
all too obvious, and he has no answer for the obvious, and he couldn't live  
with it, but he couldn't very well escape it. If he did hate him so, what in  
the nine hells was he doing? Where was his wand? Where was the curse, fighting  
its way past his teeth at last? He was an imposter in his own skin. He hated  
himself most of all.  
  
"I don't love you," Harry repeats, as if saying it again would help things. He  
says it emphatically, enunciating every syllable, as if they bring him some  
kind of twisted pleasure. As if he -wants- to be doing this, perverting his  
own will. Draco is almost certain he does. Of course he does. Bloody Potter,  
so much more perverse than any student of the Dark Arts ever dreamed of being.  
What a great joke it all was, really.  
  
Harry's expression is one of intense, solemn concentration, as he takes  
Draco's hand into his own. They had managed to maintain their precarious sort  
of balance, neither of them screaming nor fighting nor tearing at each other's  
clothes and skin, breaking each other open with words and looks and their  
whole bodies, plunging into each other, but only in silence. It was always  
like this. Teetering on the edge, not looking down. The first one to look down  
was the first one to fall, though the other always follows not long after. If  
your chest is burning, your heart beating so fast it seems bound to rip free  
any moment-- if your vision is going dark, if your gut is clenching, and you  
feel like you're going to throw up any moment-- whatever you do, don't look  
down. That's the unspoken rule of survival.   
  
Draco stares at his hand, clasped firmly in Harry's own, unbelievingly, as if  
it were a stranger's. He doesn't remember who he is, at that moment, and whom  
he hates. The sensation is back, that one of thick, choking unreality, that  
forces its way up his throat every time Harry touches him. There is a reason  
he likes staring into the midday sun, until his eyes burn and his throat  
constricts, parched and painful, his skin sizzling with electricity. There is  
a reason he relishes those simple moments, when they fight, clean and simple,  
drawing blood, the curses on their lips simple and unmistakeable for anything  
but what they are. Those are the moments he lives for, the moments he  
understands, because they have always been a part of him, as familiar as his  
own breath. He is purely himself, then, and he remembers. He remembers what he  
needs to.  
  
"Fuck you," Draco says, his voice bitter like the taste of new blood seeping  
from an old wound. He seems unable to spit it out, even though the words left  
him, it's like they didn't, they just clung to the lining of his throat,  
impossible to swallow.  
  
Harry doesn't hear him, which isn't surprising. His face is still, and he  
seems transfixed, by what, Draco couldn't begin to imagine. He is staring at a  
spot just above Draco's head, looking bedazzled. Suddenly, his gaze drops, and  
he looks straight into Draco's eyes. A small, sparkly thing shivers into life  
in Draco's gut. It's ticklish and hot, like a tiny sun, looking for release  
from its prison inside him. Or a Snitch, its wings tickling him as they rush  
upwards, sending prickles racing to every nerve in his body. It figures,  
because no matter what, this is Harry Potter, and he always gets the Snitch.  
Draco had been so close, so close. Just a little bit longer, and it would've  
been gone. Just a small space to insulate it, full of blinding light and  
silence, and it would be gone, and he would forget he was ever anything but  
himself. He'd swallowed it, he'd caught it, he'd hidden it inside him, he'd  
refused to open his mouth, he knocked Harry off the broom, he'd tried  
everything. Harry caught it every time. He really, really hates Harry Potter.  
He could feel the light of the other's eyes burning words onto his skin, and  
it isn't silent at all.  
  
The sparkling thing tickles his tongue, brushing the back of his lips for a  
moment, and then escapes him, free to be caught. Draco waits for his bile to  
rise, for the sense of loss, so familiar and despised, to burn its path down  
his center. He is patient, all things considered. It is only a matter of time,  
before Harry catches it, and the game is over, easy as that, he thinks. It had  
always been just a matter of time, really. Each moment of his silence, another  
moment to bring him closer to its end. Draco waits, but nothing happens. Harry  
remains oblivious, though it's hard to tell because he's still looking  
straight at him, and distantly, Draco realizes that it's gotten rather hard to  
string thoughts together, and that he is tired of waiting. Harry always wins,  
doesn't he? Harry always gets what he wants, Snitches or not. But so does  
Draco. Harry's eyes are reflective, unreadable, yet, Draco is pretty sure,  
still oblivious as can be. Harry always smiles those weird, tiny smiles, at  
completely random moments, really. He can't see it. He can't see it! Draco  
feels like grinning. He won? He won! It makes no sense. It doesn't need to  
make sense, of course, as long as it's true. Suddenly, he feels much lighter,  
weightless almost, like he had the world lifted from him. Or perhaps it has  
escaped, into the cool evening air. Either way, he feels as if he could float  
away with the slightest breeze. He still has it to give, even though he'd lost  
it. As long as he doesn't think about it too long, that seems to make sense,  
yes. Everything is quite as it should be, in fact, Draco thinks.  
  
"And I love you," Draco says, closing his eyes, in pain or acute, ridiculous  
embarrassment, he can't tell. He hears a rustle, and a soft exhaled breath,  
and then he thankfully doesn't notice much else for a long while. 


End file.
